It’s always a good idea to keep track of how you spend your money. With bank accounts we ordinarily get bank statements however with mobile money this is something that often gets overlooked due to the convenience it affords its users.
Mobile networks do however recognize the importance of such a resource with respect to mobile money and now most of them provide ways to access mobile money statements.
At the forefront of this are Safaricom who provide a couple of different ways for one to access their M-PESA Statements depending on ones needs.
Types of M-PESA Statements Available
There are currently two types of M-PESA statements:
- full statement
- mini statement
The full statement shows you your entire transactions over a period of time (e.g. a month, 6 months) and is sent via email though one can also view it online. The mini statement on the other hand only tells you of the last 5 transactions made and is sent via SMS.
The full statements can only go as far back as 6 months one year. If you need something that goes beyond this timeline, Safaricom advises you to get it from a Safaricom Shop or you could try the M-Ledger method outlined later in this post.
Another thing to note is that the Full Statements sent to your email are in PDF format and therefore you’ll need a PDF viewer to read them. The PDFs are also secured with a password, the password being your National ID number or the one of the following original identification document that you used to register your M-PESA account with:
- Passport
- Military ID
- Diplomatic ID, or
- Alien ID,
1. Get M-PESA Mini Statement
Option 1: Via SMS
By SMS you can only get the Mini statement. To do this you can use either a USSD code or the Sim Toolkit available in your phone.
a. Using USSD
1. Dial *234# in your phone
2. In the menu select the My M-PESA Information
3. Next select M-PESA Statement
4. Enter 2 to get the Mini Statement
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| Type of Statement |
5.. You should then get an SMS with your last five transactions
b. Via SIM Toolkit/SIM Applications
This will also send you a mini statement via SMS but with only the last one transaction made instead of five.
1. Open your SIM Toolkit/SIM Applications
2. Go to the M-PESA Menu
3. Choose My Account.
4. Select Mini Statement from the Menu
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| My Account Menu |
5. Enter your M-PESA Pin
6. You should get an SMS shortly from MPESA with the last transaction you made.
2. Get Full M-PESA Statements Via Email
1. Dial *234# in your phone
2. In the menu select the My M-PESA Information
3. Next select M-PESA Statement
4. Enter 1 to get the Full Statement.
5. If its your first time requesting the statement you’ll be prompted to register your details. If you had already registered however, in the next menu you’ll be provided with an option to get statements from the past 3, 6 or 12 months.
6. To register, reply with your National ID or the registration number of the document you registered M-PESA with (Passport, Alien ID, Military ID etc.)
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| ID Number |
6. Enter and confirm your Email address where you want the statements to be sent to.
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| Email Address |
7. That’s it. You’ll get a confirmation SMS with the email address you’ve entered. After a while you should also receive your M-PESA statement for the past 6 months in your email. You’ll also now be receiving monthly statements sent to your email by the 5th day of every month.
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| Successfully Registered |
Note:
If in the future you’d wish to change the email address where the statements are sent to or opt out from receiving the statements altogether, follow the steps outlined above then in the menu where you request for a Mini or Full Statement, you should find two options to either Change E-mail or Opt out.
3. Use MySafaricom App to get M-PESA Statements
First download and install mySafaricom app from Android’s Google Playstore. Versions for Windows Phone and the iPhone are also available.
Follow the set up instructions to get started with the App. You’ll need to enter an email address when setting up but you can change it later.
In the app’s start page open the M-PESA option then at the bottom of the page expand the M-PESA Statement option whic will reveal two buttons to request either a Full or Mini Statement.
Below these two options there’s a button to change the email address where the statement is sent to.
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| MySafaricom App M-PESA Menu (2016 version) |
4. Check your M-PESA Statements Online on Safaricom Web Selfcare
You can also check M-PESA statements online. Just log into Safaricom Selfcare or create an account first if you don’t have one yet. Once you log in, go to the M- PESA menu and select the M-PESA statement item which allows you to geneare statements for up to 6 months.
The statements can also be filtered according to type like airtime purchase, paybill, M-Shawari, Reversal e.t.c. Check the screenshot below to see the complete list.
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| M-PESA on Safaricom Selfcare (click to enlarge) |
You can even choose a specific timeline (e.g 3 months, 2 weeks) since you’re provided with a calendar to choose specific dates. The statement can also be exported to a PDF (without password) in the same menu.
The timeline however is only valid for a period of 6 months. If you need M-PESA statements for more than 6 months, use the USSD option to get one for 12 months. For anything beyond that, Safaricom advises you to visit a Safaricom shop and make the request there.
5. Use Safaricom M-Ledger App
2019 Update: Safaricom removed the M-ledger app from the playstore and the M-ledger website seems to no longer work. As per their Twitter replies, they no longer support M-Ledger and instead recommend users make use of MySafaricom app. Consequently, getting statements as outlined below is no longer possible.
The M-ledger app doesn’t actually send you statements rather it generates a database of your transactions from the SMS messages sent to you by M-PESA along with importing 6 months of your transactions from Safaricom. It then automatically syncs this database with mledger.safaricom.com so that the info can be accessed later on.
In my case, I Initially had doubts with the app because I wasn’t sure about using SMS for the data but those fears were soon allayed. For some reason I had M-PESA messages on my phone dating as far back as 2014 and the app generated some very good looking reports based on this data alone. And that’s not at all, the app also does the following:
- It imports up to 6 months of your M-PESA transactions into the app
- Shows your current M-PESA balance
- Shows your recent transactions
- Has an M-PESA calculator to calculate transaction costs
- Shows the total amount sent and received over a period time
- Shows transactions per person or business
- Shows you your top 20 M-PESA money recipients and senders
- Sorts total amounts transaction type i.e. airtime, paybill, buy goods, deposit, withdrawal, sent
- Automatically backups and restores your transactions from the cloud
- Summarizes most of this data in graphs and charts
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| M-Ledger Start Page |
So if you are serious about the M-PESA transactions you make, the M-Ledger app is definitely a must have. It’s convenient, easy to use and does a good job analysing your transactions into nice readable formats unlike the statements which just report the data as it is. It’s also the only method here that give you direct access to M-PESA statements beyond 6 months one year assuming you have the M-PESA transaction SMS messages in your phone.
You can also visit the M-Ledger website and from there you can generate spreadsheets (Excel) of your transactions and also export the data to PDF, Word etc. This must come in handy for business owners that use M-PESA.
You can get the M-Ledger app from Google PlayStore.
Hopefully these five methods should meet your most immediate M-PESA statements needs. Should they not suffice, visit the nearest Safaricom shop near you for more options.
